One does not "look a gift horse in the mouth" (I think that is how the saying goes....though I admit I do not know the origin), but this is almost too good of a week not to comment upon. Thanks to the previously mentioned civil rights pioneer's work and America's fear of offending the black community, white-bread St. Alban's gave me Monday off, but today was a special surprise. Julie and I did not get home until after 11:00 last night, and, though really cold, the streets were dry and able to be driven upon at top speed. About 5 and 1/2 hours later I received a phone call saying that school had been canceled. Somewhere in those hours there had fallen a fine layer of snow and ice that once again shut down the city. So, we enjoyed yet another day of reading and resting.
I am trying to get through the "Juvenalia" of Jane Austen, which encompasses everything she wrote before she was a decent writer. Let me be brief and blunt; it is almost unreadable; seriously, unreadable. Imagine if you will enjoying your favorite singer....when they were infants. Try listening to the equivalent of 250 pages of Stevie Wonder at 3 years old; that is what I spent the majority of the day reading....except worse.
To break up the Elizabethan monotony of purity and niceness Julie and I partook of a couple of movies that promised at least a little something less good. If you know Julie and I, you know that we rent movies about once a year, and so we had to make it good. There were two or three that I had wanted to see, and luckily for me a couple of them were at the snow-day-ravaged Blockbuster. We ended of seeing "Little Miss Sunshine" and "The Last Kiss".
I was going to give my take on the movies, but this post has been sitting on my desktop for the last week, and I will never post it if I wait until I have time to think it through. Be your own judge, but check them out if you get a chance.
I am trying to get through the "Juvenalia" of Jane Austen, which encompasses everything she wrote before she was a decent writer. Let me be brief and blunt; it is almost unreadable; seriously, unreadable. Imagine if you will enjoying your favorite singer....when they were infants. Try listening to the equivalent of 250 pages of Stevie Wonder at 3 years old; that is what I spent the majority of the day reading....except worse.
To break up the Elizabethan monotony of purity and niceness Julie and I partook of a couple of movies that promised at least a little something less good. If you know Julie and I, you know that we rent movies about once a year, and so we had to make it good. There were two or three that I had wanted to see, and luckily for me a couple of them were at the snow-day-ravaged Blockbuster. We ended of seeing "Little Miss Sunshine" and "The Last Kiss".
I was going to give my take on the movies, but this post has been sitting on my desktop for the last week, and I will never post it if I wait until I have time to think it through. Be your own judge, but check them out if you get a chance.
"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth"
Origin:
This comes into the category of phrases called proverbs, that is, 'short and expressive sayings, in common use, which are recognized as conveying some accepted truth or useful advice'.
don't look a gift horse in the mouthAs horses age their teeth begin to project further forward each year and so their age can be estimated by checking how prominent the teeth are. This incidentally is also the source of another teeth/age related phrase - long in the tooth.
The advice given in the 'don't look...' proverb is: when given a present, be grateful for your good fortune and don't look for more by examining it to assess its value.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/117000.html